Be It Ever So Messy, There's No Place Like Home: The "Adventures" of a 50-Something Southern California Mom - who used to be interesting... and her teenage daughter.

March 2009

March 30, 2009

I'm going to be brief, because life is coming at me like a wave right now.

I'm in a vortex of planning for my daughter's birthday (Friday), Passover (next Wednesday), and the Bat Mitzvah. In conjunction with the latter event, my British mum-in-law is flying out for a three-week visit: her first time in the United States since our wedding (16 years ago).

I have a feeling I'll be writing a more extended post about that later - that is, if I find time to tear myself away from all the housework, cooking, housework, preparations and more housework that I need to do right now.

On top of that, today is our first back at our old gym.

I won't go into details about what prompted the move back. I am happy to give up the 35-mile one-way drive out to Ventura County. I am happy to reunite my daughter with the girls she trained with since she was in third grade.

But we are leaving people we really love at the other place and because of that, the decision to return wasn't as easy as one would think. In fact, I've been something of an emotional basket case (I mean, more than usual).

March 27, 2009

I think I've mentioned here that I've been trying hard to economize, with varied results.

I've managed to pare my own expenditures (for myself and the family) by about 25%. But some other family members are having trouble getting with the program.

"I have to read a book for my history project," my daughter announced on Friday. "So I need you to take me to Borders."

Uh, no.

She's been working on an in-depth report on the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island, an event that captured her imagination in December, when we did a tour of the former prison. Even if I wanted to spend the money, a book on this topic might be hard to find in a store. This was a job for the Los Angeles Public Library.

A search on the library's online catalog turned up a number of likely resources. Unfortunately, none were available at any of our local branches. We would have to go downtown.

I have always had a soft spot for the Central Library, which was originally built in 1926 and features an Egyptian-influenced tower designed by architect Bertram Goodhue. It was extensively renovated and expanded following a 1986 arson fire and is was subsequently renamed the Richard Riordan Central Library (after the mayor who was in office during its 1993 grand reopening) - but I don't know of anyone who calls it that.

I spent a lot of time down there as a college student, taking advantage of cheap bus fares on weekends (an early '70's RTD response to the first oil crisis). I don't get a lot of opportunity to go down there much these days, thanks to the nasty traffic that chokes our freeways these days nearly 24/7. So I was kind of happy for the excuse to go down there and explore.

So was my husband, who loves to take photos of the architectural gems and natural features around the city (yes, the image above is one of his).

The only person NOT enamored of the downtown library was our daughter - but I guess I can't blame her. The only time we had to go was on Saturday afternoon, right after she finished her four-hour gymnastics workout -- and she was tired.

"Can't you check it out without me?" she whined.

No. It's her project, and I thought she should have the opportunity to browse the available books before deciding which one(s) to take.

We found a couple of good volumes fairly quickly -- but then, we lost my husband, who wanted to explore the library further. My daughter moaned when she realized we weren't leaving right away. I thought she was going to break out into a toddler-style tantrum when her dad returned.

"Did you know you can check out DVD's too?" he asked.

Yes. But with movies on demand, Blockbuster and Netflix, I never thought to actually do it.

Some background: My college major was Radio-TV-Film. I am the cinemaphile in the family, and when I was single, I went to the movies once or twice a week. Since marrying and becoming a mom... I don't go so much. Every so often, I organize Mom's Movie Days, where a bunch of us head to an early matinee while the kids are in school.

But my husband can take it or leave it (mostly the latter). We go to the movies together maybe once a year. (and it's always a "guy" flick - anything with Star Trek or X Men or Bourne in the title). We hold on to our Netflix selections for MONTHS because I keep hoping he'll watch with me (and in most cases, I give up and watch the DVD alone so I can return it and get the next one that I want to see).

But when he was in college, he saw this Sergio Leone cult classic and has always said it was the best movie ever. Ironically, I've never seen it and it's not on my list, because the older I get, the less tolerant I am of viewing violence on the screen.

So anyway... my husband wanted to check out "Once Upon a Time in America," even though he NEVER wants to sit still for a couple of hours to watch a movie. But there was a hitch: It wasn't at the Central Library. We would have to pick it up at the Hollywood branch.

Now the kid was whining about how tired she was. I reminded my husband that we could add the movie to our Netflix queue and he could have it in a couple of days, but he was determined to get it from the library... because he COULD.

So we drove out to the Hollywood Library (which was on our way home) and eventually found parking on a scary street a couple of blocks away. The kid and I opted to stay in the car while he went in. And we waited. And waited.

Eventually, he returned with THREE DVD's, which he showed me proudly. They all had stickers reading "2 DAYS."

"How long did they say you could keep these?" I asked.

Most library books can be checked out for three weeks. Hub didn't think to ask the librarian about the DVD's. It turned out that they were ALL due on Monday. On top of that, one of the DVD cases contained the wrong disk.

He didn't watch ANY of them and on Sunday night, he asked ME to return them for him. He had confirmed that I could bring them to our local branch, so I figured it would be easy just to slip them in the night deposit slot.

"I think you need to go inside and show them that wrong disk or they might charge us for it."

I didn't think that was necessary (they give you the wrong disk all the time at Blockbuster and nobody makes a big deal out of it) - but I agreed... and it's a good thing I did, because the librarians at Mid Valley thought it WAS a big deal, and their first suggestion was that I take it back to Hollywood . This is something I was unable to do on Monday as it was my turn to drive gymnastics carpool in the opposite direction and besides -- why should I have to drive all the way back there when it was the fault of the Hollywood library?

It took about 20 minutes to get it sorted out so I could return that last DVD without a penalty.

So... I love the library, but in the future, I'm going to stick to checking out books.

March 25, 2009

I get emailed a lot of press releases. Most of them go straight into my trash folder: I have PLENTY of ideas for blog posts -- I'm only limited by the amount of time I've got to write them.

I spent FIVE HOURS today at Starbucks because I was finding it hard to focus at home. In that time, I managed to finish a new post for Los Angeles Moms Blog and 50-Something Moms Blog (not yet published as of right now). I also got 3/4 of the way through a post that I started on Monday and found out this morning that I'd hit "publish" instead of "draft." (OOPS.)

I have yet to finish the post I started Monday for the Career Kids blog - and don't think I'll get to it today (which means I once again lied to my sister, who I work for over there).

And we won't even talk about all the material I owe my tribe over at MOMocrats.

So I don't really NEED to get ideas from PR companies - but I do pursue opportunities when I think it'll be fun to do here.

I RARELY post a press release verbatim. However, I think this one is of interest to enough LA residents to warrant it. So here it is:

It's a tough time to apply to college. Public
universities are accepting fewer students, college costs are on the rise, and
more and more students are qualified to and deserve to attend college.

Find out how to navigate the college admissions process
at a FREE workshop sponsored by UCLA Extension. Presented by Dr. Rebecca
Joseph, the workshop is designed to give parents the tools and knowledge to
help their high school students prepare for the college application and
admissions process. The workshop addresses:

Working effectively with high school counselors

Extracurricular activities and course choices

Preparing for standardized tests

Applying to the right colleges and visiting college
campuses

The college application process itself

Dr. Rebecca Joseph is a professor of education at
California State University, Los Angeles and an independent college counselor.
A former middle and high school English teacher, she earned her B.A. at Harvard
and her Ph.D. in Urban Schooling at UCLA. She believes all students should have
the option of attending a college matching their abilities and interests.

UCLA Extension's free college admissions workshop takes
place Monday, April 20, 7-9 p.m., in Dodd Hall Room 147 on the UCLA campus in
Los Angeles. Please RSVP by April 15 to 310-206-7229 or amarkowi@uclaextension.edu.
Include your name, email address and daytime phone number, and number of
attendees.

The current recession has all the makings of an economic tsunami. I know it's largely man-made, but throughout history, booms and recessions have followed one another as surely as winter comes after summer. We're all being affected by a situation that is out of our control (just like a hurricane or earthquake). And that leads to feelings of helplessness.

Los Angeles is not the friendliest of towns. I do not see much of my neighbors, and I think they're OK with not seeing much of me. So my most indelible memory of the 1994 Northridge earthquake was what occurred after the shaking stopped: Neighbors who had been strangers coming together and looking out for one another. It was beautiful.

I think the recession is sparking a similar reaction. People are fighting that helpless feeling by pitching in. And that's a good thing, because the need is great.

"Demand for our services has increased 41% since the start of the recession," reported Food Bank volunteer coordinator Ana Martinez, who led the bloggers on a tour of the massive warehouse structure. It was a little bit reminiscent of Costco, with crates of food stacked high to the ceilings, interspersed with assembly line areas, where volunteers and employees can inspect food donations and assemble assistance packages.

Ana told us that the Southern California food pantries and soup kitchens serve over 600,000 individuals in a typical year (so you can imagine how many residents will benefit in atypical 2009).

Food Bank products come from three major sources: Food industry donations (from several sources, including all the area's major supermarket chains), USDA commodities and food purchased from monetary donations.

The LA mom bloggers were put to work on a project we all could relate to: the Food Bank's Backpack Program, which serves around 400 children at risk of hunger: Each Friday, the kids are given a backpack with food to carry them through the weekend, when they don't have the benefit of free school lunches. "They come back to school on Mondays focused and ready to work," Ana told us, "because they're not distracted by being hungry."

For the next couple of hours, we cleaned out backpacks and stuffed each of them with a big box of cereal, a bottle of fruit juice, packaged macaroni and cheese, and canned mac and beef and chili.

I know. It doesn't sound like a lot - but even a little makes a difference.

Because the food is donated, there IS an abundance of canned and processed products. But the Food Bank makes an effort to balance that out with their Rapid Distribution program of good, fresh produce and other perishables. "Given
that many agencies have very limited refrigeration, this allows
nutritious food to get to recipients at agency sites, primarily food
pantries," the organization's website explains.

Our work went quickly; we all agreed that assembling the backpacks was really easy (and not a lot different from collating classroom materials for PTA). Plus, we had fun and walked away with the knowledge that we had done something to help families who are struggling through this very difficult time.

I'm thankful to Yvonne of Joy Unexpected for organizing our Food Bank visit for Quaker Oats' GO project. I was especially looking forward to participating because my daughter's Bat Mitzvah project is to raise funds for a local pantry (which is one of the hundreds that is supported by Los Angeles Regional Food Bank).

Until we get our act together, I've set up a virtual drive here on the Internet. I've set myself a lofty goal of raising $1000. It's really lofty when you see that I only seeded it with a $10 donation of my own to start - but I figure if I can reach 100 people here who each donate $10, we can do it. Every dollar donated allows the Food Bank to distribute $5 worth of food, so it's money well-spent.